


Understanding, in All its Many Forms

by TheBookTheDragonSaved



Series: I will write this ship or I will die trying. [3]
Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: -Ish, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Avengers Tower, Character Study, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Mantis is tougher than you think, One Shot, One of My Favorites, We need more Loki and Mantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24625171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBookTheDragonSaved/pseuds/TheBookTheDragonSaved
Summary: A study/story of Mantis and Loki, one of whom is described here. Should be easy to find out which one, no?This person has long dark hair, pale skin, and wears a lot of green. They were adopted by a god - who turned out to be kind of a bit of a murderer - in an attempt to extend his control over the cosmos and were raised among gold palaces. They were lonely.They understand people: their feelings, their hopes and their dreams. They can read others like an open book but not themselves.Later, they realised a terrible truth and betrayed their father-figure, eventually playing a part in his death, and though they try not to, they regret it.Not as easy as you thought, huh?...So. Full disclosure: I love this pairing. This isn't a huge fic, but I'm happy with it because I finally managed to write down some of the things I find fascinating about the similarities and contrasts between these two. Starts with.. angst, I guess? Moves to hurt/comfort and then humour+happiness, following the path I think Loki and Mantis would take.
Relationships: Loki & Guardians of the Galaxy Team, Loki & Mantis (Marvel), Loki/Mantis (Marvel), Mantis & Guardians of the Galaxy Team
Series: I will write this ship or I will die trying. [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726816
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	Understanding, in All its Many Forms

They don’t really match, she knows. At first glance, they are so drastically different it is hard to believe they exist in the same universe. She knows this from the comments the others make – especially Stark, who in seven years has still not learned to guard his tongue. She understands why people might be confused; she really does. After all, he is a prince and acts like one. A god, even, raised to rule a nation. He has been called cold, she knows. He is angry, and vicious, and calculating, and so blatantly, aggressively complicated.

She, on the other hand, is an alien from some unknown planet in the farthest reaches of the galaxy, named after a bug, who laughs raucously whenever she can. People expect very little in conversation with her; they think her kind, sweet-tempered and innocent – but simple. ‘Simple in every sense of the word’, is what they think of her – she can feel it on their skin.

But this is where the observations of people like Stark, who are not particularly involved in the affairs of either party fall short. Because their two images, as startlingly different as they may seem, have one thing in common. They are both lies.

And now the similarities begin.

Mantis’s very existence had depended on the goodwill of her benefactor, and even if it had not, she had loved Ego with every fibre of her being. (She still did sometimes; she would wake up crying and missing him, and then hate herself until she fell back to sleep.) If she loved him, she had learned, if she wanted to live, she would smile. Be kind and facilitating; be polite to the guests, because the fate of my universe may depend on our making a good impression. Even after she escaped, she knew that people did not like complications, so she determined to be simple. She did not think about things like respect.

Loki’s existence had also depended on the goodwill of an adoptive father, although he had not known it. His chains had been his determination to make his father proud; and to make sure he was not a disappointment to his mother, whom he loved more than anything in the world. (He too, would still wake, crying for the same parents who had _left him,_ and then be angry at himself until sleep returned.) If he cared about them, he had been taught, if he wanted to uphold the honour of their family and of Asgard, he would fight. Be brave and mighty like your brother; appear lordly to the guests, because the fate of our nation may depend on our making a good impression. Even after he was thrown out, he blamed that same weakness he was told he had, and determined to be stronger, to cut out anything and anyone that stood in the way of greatness. He did not think about things like happiness.

They had so much in common, and their families saw it, were a little less surprised than most that they could understand each other so easily. But even then, they had all the things in common that one would expect required an opposite in a partner, not a reflection.

Mantis saw people for who they were, and so she knew that the two of them were not ‘one guilty and the other an innocent light in darkness’, although it might seem so from the outside. They were both guilty, in their own minds. They were not ‘one of them insecure and the other bold enough for both’. They had both been bred (whether purposefully or not) to loath themselves, to believe themselves too small, too weak, and lesser than the brilliant people around them.

The Guardians and Thor lost their understanding of the relationship at this point, because surely two people with those things in common would simply drag each other down further, fall together into despair. And maybe they should, but all Mantis knew was that the more time she and Loki spent together, the lighter she felt – and he did too; she could feel it, after all.

Because yes, they were each trapped in their own head, each believing they were too far gone, or not worth helping, the years of conditioning too deeply ingrained, but they were also both perceptive enough to see that the other person was wrong. Bit by bit; piece by piece; they rebuilt each other.

To Mantis, whatever else Loki was, he _had_ made himself strong. (Concepts like good and evil were secondary to her, because how can you put such a simple label on the whirling maelstroms of thought and feeling that she was surrounded by every day?) He was just as formidable a warrior as the others, but in a Tower of bash-and-whackers, he was the only one who looked deeper or who actually enjoyed listening to her insights on how people worked. The study of people was a strange one, and they had both learned it in bad faith, but some things never left you, and knowing people’s workings mattered to them both. She didn’t think anyone would ever truly understand exactly how her abilities made her see the world, but he came closest. To have someone believe _her_ powerful, to have such an obviously strong person value and respect her skillset… it made her feel worthwhile.

On Loki’s part, she was exactly what he needed. He had studied and manipulated people his whole life, and been scorned for it – for not being masculine enough to just hack things to pieces like a regular man. But now he saw it from the outside for the first time and knew he had been right about its power: Mantis could rule the world if she wanted to, command it to love her, and no one would see it coming. Seeing in her the power of emotions and knowing that he could no longer discount them as unnecessary helped him, but the thing that helped most was the knowledge that she would never use that power. She had come, through fire and hell and hatred, just like he had, but in the end all it had done was make her kind. And suddenly, his faith in the world, lost in the tainting of all his happiest memories, was restored. Because here was Mantis, who had seen what he had, walked in the darkest corners of the world, where love was a lie told to control you, who had lost her ignorance and innocence in the worst possible way, and she was kind.

There were still things to work through of course: things to forgive themselves and things to forgive others. For instance, it was not until he met Mantis, who had the most terrible background of them all, and carried it uncomplainingly, that Loki finally began to release some of the anger that had plagued him since he had first left Asgard. It helped that she would not allow him to protest the designation of Freya and Odin as his parents. (She knew parental love when she felt it, she said, or was he questioning her ability as an empath? And if she had to live with having a mass child-murdering psychopath as her father-figure, he could suck up and deal with having the actual king and queen of the gods as his parents. And when she put it like that… well perhaps he was being a _little_ bratty.) It would never leave him completely, of course, just like Mantis would never stop fearing the influence Ego had had on her character – but for the most part, they saved each other.

And then came the best bits, the small things. New experiences, and jokes, and favourite foods and places. For her, was the discovery of new worlds between the pages of a book, which she had never had the chance to consider on the Guardian’s ship. Then they created a whole new fighting style; tailor made, mixing empathy and instinct with carefully governed movement and momentum – and there was nothing quite like the feeling when she held out for the first time against Gamora’s most devastating blow, or first pinned Parker (who was learning alongside her) to the mat. Her family weren’t sure about the magic, used to heat tea, and clean grime from her wounds but to her, something about it felt like coming home, like ripples lapping at her feet, and a buzz in the air.

For Loki, the new experiences were smaller, but just as remarkable. He would freeze, struck by the surrealness of his situation (he was happy now?) in the middle of a new videogame she had wheedled out of Parker, and she would laugh when she felt his feelings against her arm, before using his distraction to beat him soundly. Mantis had the Guardians wrapped around her little finger, and before he knew it, Peter Quill was ‘determined to be nice to him’ and Gamora – _daughter of Thanos, for goodness sake_ – had offered to buy him a new whetstone for his knives the next time they visited the Merrinon Cluster, or a flask of Saccaran brandy, whichever came first. Thor would probably be doing the same with Mantis, but Loki was pretty sure she made him nervous, so instead, he clapped Loki loudly on the back and congratulated him often on ‘finally showing some interest in a lady’.

For his part, Loki enjoyed the confusion that stemmed from his keeping company with Mantis. The faces of the Avengers during those first few weeks when he began favouring her companionship over solitude had been intensely gratifying, and the Guardians reacted like bees when their nest was disturbed. He purposely requested a delay in announcing their courtship (bleh; dating, what an ugly word) in favour of having as many Avengers as possible catch them kissing. If their reactions to the friendship were gratifying, these were _priceless_.

Mantis had been a little uncomfortable at first, some inbuilt fear of drawing attention to herself kicking into gear, but one could only stand their poor confused faces for so long without bursting into laughter, so she got over it. Indeed, they made a game of it eventually, purposely doing everything together, accentuating their different personas, taking bites from each other’s breakfasts just to see Romanoff or Rogers do a double-take, checking that yes, they really had just seen Loki, Prince of Asgard and former bane of the Earth calmly offer a peck on the cheek and a bite of his egg to the weird bug-alien that liked to leave flowers outside people’s doors for them to find in the morning.

And that was good, because they didn’t need other people to understand them, so long as they understood themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> What d'ya think? I've never posted such an obvious character study, but it's really fun!!! I am super happy I managed to get this down and I hope you all find it as interesting as I do. 
> 
> Also, here's a paragraph I started writing and then had to restart because I went off on a tangent:  
> It was not until he met Mantis, who had the most terrible background of them all, except, perhaps – no, Mantis has it worse than Natasha; she’s probably even seen more deaths than her – it’s just that Mantis reacted by being kind. Let’s try that again.
> 
> Also also, If anyone writes any Loki & Mantis stuff, please tell me and I will read it - there is almost nothing out there :(


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